No Blessings
by RevolutionaryWarlock
Summary: Rachel Hamilton doesn't want to know her son's future. The burdens she and Alex have had to bear have been enough, and she knows that with knowledge, they only grow. But if she can find her son any relief before she is gone forever, she will. Really strange Modern AU.
**Author's Note:** **I've had this idea forever, but it wasn't specifically a Hamilton idea, but that's how it worked out. I do not know where I'm going with this or if I'm even going to go on with it, but I had to write it. It turned out sadder than I anticipated. Sorry about that. Completely historically inaccurate.**

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Rachel Hamilton didn't like being abnormal. She didn't take pride in her profession, she wasn't grateful when people fawned and appraised her on her "gift". She provided her services cheap, because to her, it was nothing but pain. She provided her services cheap because that's how it made her feel.

Seeing the future was no blessing.

She hated the visions that constantly plagued her, morning or night, sleeping or awake. There was no relief. It wasn't as hard for her to do it for other people at their request, but sometimes she couldn't help what she saw. Seeing each of her family members fail and die before it happened, having to grieve and suffer twice, both times quietly and softly, took an incomprehensible toll on her. Her once bright eyes and thick hair had turned pale and thinned before she was in her mid-thirties. Her hands shriveled. Her mind was worn and exhausted, but it seemed that it was the only thing she had left that worked. It allowed her to focus on nothing other than her work.

And Alexander.

After seeing the people she cared about die one by one before their presence had been taken from the world, she vowed to spare herself of knowing the fate of her youngest – and only surviving – son. She never touched him for fear that it would trigger the visions. She barely showed him affection to keep either of them from feeling attachment to each other, since her own past ones had hurt her so. She told him as little as possible of her job and her capabilities though that didn't cease his curiosity. Her own coldness had nearly killed her, seeing the pain of abandonment plain on her sons face and feeling the heavy ache in her chest, pulling her down, hunching her back, making her weaker every moment of every day.

They both were alone, and they were never lonelier than when they were together.

Despite this, Rachel did what she could to provide what was best for her son. He was so very smart. Too smart, many people thought. Smart enough to get into trouble. Rachel didn't listen to those people, and told Alex that he shouldn't either. She saved enough money to move them both to America, New York, so Alex could get a real education, not the insufficient tutoring from her and their neighbors. He shot so far ahead of the other kids, and he worked harder at his education than Rachel had ever seen anyone work at anything. There was a passion in him that she had never found in herself, a drive that she never possessed. He was twelve and he was taking nearly a full load of high school courses. Rachel yearned every day to cradle him in her arms, stroke his thick hair, and tell him how proud she was of him. But all she ever said was "Have you finished your homework yet?"

Because he was so intuitive, it was hardly a surprise when he figured out his mother's true occupation. He would make curious comments when she arrived home late from work with a scare pocket of money, asking her all kinds of cleverly crafted questions which she avoided swiftly.

Once he was certain of what she could do, he grew more and more determined to convince her to tell him his future.

It was out of the question.

And then she got sick.

Terminal, a virus, unfamiliar to doctors in the area. They didn't even know where to begin to treat it. Confusion deteriorated her health until her skin and bones faded and she could barely walk. The visions came to her more often, more fiercely, but less clear, as if she were outgrowing a pair of glasses. She never told Alex, even when the headaches were unbearable. Whenever she caught a glimpse of him in her mind, of him further from what he was now, she did everything she could to stop it. Fortunately, sightings of her son were fleeting, in both real life and what she saw behind her eyes. When she did see him, when he came to her, it was always to ask her what would become of him. Her adamant refusals stayed that way.

But she was weak, and he soon wore her down.

"Mom, how am I going to go on when you're gone?" Her death was imminent at that point; they both knew it. "What will I do? Will I be okay?" he would ask her worriedly, desperately.

"You will be fine," she would tell him exhaustedly, unable to keep her eyes open. "You're a smart boy. And I'm not dead just yet."

"Mom."

"Alex, don't worry about me. Go home, get some sleep." Even as she said it Rachel was certain that he wasn't thinking of her.

But he refused to budge on the matter.

"Momma, please. I want to know how much time I have left."

"Years."

"No."

"A lifetime. You have a lifetime and you need to live it without knowing when it will be gone. Knowing is a distraction."

"Fine, then. At least tell me what comes after this for me. What I'm going to do when you're gone." He knelt at the edge of her hospital bed on that final night, his jittery hands tentatively resting on the starched sheets.

Rachel sighed. She hadn't yet passed her fortieth birthday, much less her sixtieth, seventieth, but she felt like an old woman. She exhaled, long, defeated, and then coughed.

"Alright."

Alex didn't move, didn't say anything, and Rachel felt a brief fleeing moment of peace before she took her son's hands in hers.

"Alex?"

"Yes, momma?"

"This is what you wanted."

If he said something she hadn't heard him. The pain in her head was blaring, and she gripped his hands as she fell deeper into the visions.

It was excruciating. Spots danced in front of the moments and snapshots of her son's future. She caught glimpses of him at all ages, but was too deflated, too focused to feel any relief. She saw him crying, yelling, growing taller and taller before he turned gray. He was writing, he was always writing, a pen stashed behind his ear, ink staining his hands. Words danced up his arms as she saw him only a few years older than he was now, comfortably laughing with a group of boys, his hand entwining with one of the other's easily as they walked along. He was happy.

She saw him fight and write and grieve with the same fiercely determined look in his eyes. She saw him holding a child, smiling brightly, more loving than she had ever seen.

When he died, she felt it more than saw it. An impact. A light. Pressure. Sting. Nothing.

The last thing she saw was Alex talking to the boy he had held hands with. He was still young, probably around the same age as the other time. He was passionately speaking to this boy who listened with the same intensity. They were alone, and suddenly, the boy grabbed Alex's face and kissed him squarely on the lips. She saw her son's face tighten in surprise, and then slacken as his whole body fell into the boy's arms, into his kiss.

She released Alex's hands. The pain subsided; her aching did not.

Alex looked at her with eager, pleading eyes. Her mind was in a jumble, nothing that she just saw had settled into her thoughts, and she was more shocked than anything. She didn't know what to tell him. She couldn't very well say "Son, I think that you're gay," and leave him like that. She remembered watching him die, feeling the darkness creeping up on him, and how it just ended. How her fiery, kinetic son was no more.

Rachel felt weaker by the minute, and her final burden to bear was taking more and more time from her.

"Mom?" Alex said. She had been quiet too long.

"My Alexander," she sighed. "You will live. You will live a long, happy life."

"But how-"

"You won't be this lonely forever. You will do great things, so great that I can't even fully imagine them. You've made me so proud every single day of my life, and I love you so, so much, my son. I am so sorry." She felt her grip on the world slip away, the picture of her youngest child's fearful face spinning around and around and fading.

"Mom-"

"Alex, remember. You are not alone."

As she died, Rachel saw her son smiling, not at her side, but with that boy.

 _Take care of him_ , she prayed to the stranger that her son would love one day As her mind finally decided it was as spent as her body, Rachel Hamilton no longer felt lonely.


End file.
